Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: A book review printed in the 30 January 1879 issue of Nature.
Original pagination indicated within double brackets. To link directly to this page, connect with:
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S299.htm

This volume of Essays and Addresses does not profess to contain anything new, either in the
way of observation or theory. Neither is the author's style sufficiently brilliant, or his treatment
of the subjects sufficiently original to raise them much above the level of the average lectures of
a well-informed naturalist. They will, however, afford some useful and interesting information to
the general reader, and may serve to attract attention to the question of the introduction of
biology into ordinary education. This is the special subject of the first address, which, however,
though somewhat lengthy and profuse, does not attempt to grapple with the difficulty of finding
competent teachers of biology for all our schools. It is indeed suggested, that "the amount of
knowledge required to pass even the primary stage of the biological subjects, in the government
examinations, held under the auspices of the Science and Art Department," should fit its
possessor for imparting elementary instruction in biology. But we greatly doubt whether the
examiners would be of this opinion; and we rather think it would be a distressing sight to witness
a teacher, whose whole knowledge of the subject was derived from a course of study just
sufficient to enable him to pass such an examination, exposed to the questions of a lot of
intelligent country boys and girls, whose practical acquaintance with native plants and animals
was far more extensive and accurate than his own. If biology is to be taught in schools it must not
be by the regular school-teachers qualifying themselves by a few months' training in London, but
by the employment of good naturalists to give lectures, demonstrations, and out-door excursions
to all the schools of a district in succession.

In the succeeding address, on "Science-culture for the Masses," too much stress is laid on the
teaching of science as "a pleasant system of mental gymnastics." This seems to us altogether a
wrong ground to go upon. Science is not to be taught in order to strengthen the mind to do
something else by and by, but because it opens the mind to a more adequate conception of the
universe in which we live, and is in itself, truly, the knowledge which is power.

The lecture on "The Sea-serpents of Science" is interesting, both as giving a very fair
summary of the most recent evidence on this subject, and as showing that the age of incredulity
is past, and that naturalists are now prepared to admit that several distinct kinds of oceanic
monsters probably exist, of which no single specimen has yet been obtained. Recollecting,
however, the number of clever hoaxes to which this subject has given rise, we think that the
newspaper account at p. 104, of the declaration before a Liverpool J.P., made by the master and
crew of a merchant-ship, to the effect that they had seen a huge serpent twice coiled round a
sperm whale, and a similar serpent with its head raised "sixty feet perpendicularly in the air,"
should not have been inserted as evidence without first ascertaining that such a declaration was
actually made before the magistrate named. The trouble of writing a single letter would probably
have been sufficient, and would have settled the preliminary question of whether the whole store,
from beginning to end, was not a pure newspaper canard.

The article on "The Genesis of Life" repeats the now often-told tale of the fluctuations of
opinion as to spontaneous generation, and will be interesting to those who have not read it
elsewhere. Dr. Wilson tries his best to be impartial, and to place before his reader the exact
position of the question at the present time. He acknowledges that "isolation" and "destruction"
are the two great points of all experiments on the subject, and that if [[p. 287]] these are perfect
the question can be settled. It is not denied that hermetically sealed flasks give complete
isolation, the only question remaining being, to secure complete destruction of whatever
organisms, with their germs, may be within the flasks at the commencement of the experiment.
He refers to Dr. Bastian's experiments on the death-point of minute organisms and their germs,
which was invariably found to be 158° F., and he points out no fallacy in these experiments. Yet
if they are conclusive, Dr. Bastian's numerous other experiments, confirmed as they are by Dr.
Burdon-Sanderson and others, demonstrate the production of living organisms from dead matter.
The elaborate experiments of Prof. Tyndall are referred to as giving results directly opposed to
those of Dr. Bastian; but it is not sufficiently pointed out,--firstly, that in Dr. Tyndall's
experiments "isolation" was not effected in the only perfect manner by hermetical sealing, and
that many contradictory results hence ensued;--and secondly, that all the results opposed to those
of Dr. Bastian were negative, and could therefore not disprove the latter's positive results. Dr.
Bastian in his test experiments did not use "old hay," the germs in which are said to be
"indurated," but infusions of turnip and cress, and after these were subjected in sealed flasks to
temperatures of 270° F., and to 230° F. for upwards of an hour, they produced living organisms
of such varied types as bacteria, torula, protambæ, and monads. ("Evolution and Origin of
Life," p. 175-180.) As similar organisms and their germs, produced in similar infusions have
been proved to be killed by a temperature at least 100° lower than that employed in the above
experiment, what we require to settle the question is, not thousands of quite different
experiments, whose results one way or the other cannot settle the point at issue, but a repetition
of the same experiments by other observers with the object of detecting the fallacy, if any, that
lurks in them.

The only other article we can here refer to, is that on "The Law of Likeness and its
Working," which deals with the question of heredity, and Mr. Darwin's theory of Pangenesis.
But no notice is taken of Mr. Francis Galton's very important "Theory of Heredity," published in
the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. v. p. 329; which, though it may be considered
as a mere modification of that of Mr. Darwin, really differs from it in many important points, and
affords a more complete and satisfactory explanation of many of the most curious facts; such as
the unlikeness of children to their parents, the appearance of diseases and even of mental
qualities, in alternate generations, and many others. Every one wishing to comprehend this most
difficult yet most interesting subject, should study Mr. Galton's paper as a necessary supplement
to the theory of Pangenesis.

At p. 70 of Dr. Wilson's book, a letter from the Times is quoted, describing the formation of
the bees' cell, as due entirely to the pressure of opposing bees in adjacent cells. This is not
strictly correct; and Mr. Darwin's observations should have been referred to, showing that the
cell-walls are first built very thick, and are gnawed down to the requisite thinness. There is also
some obscurity in the suggested explanation of the "apparent movement" of the crocodile's upper
jaw, when it opens its mouth. The fact appears to be that the crocodile, opening its mouth when
on land, must raise its upper jaw and head (by bending the neck) simple because the lower jaw
has not room to move downwards. The movement of the upper jaw is therefore, under these
circumstances, real, and not only "apparent" as stated. One of the most interesting chapters is that
on "Animals and their Environments," in which an account is given of the curious changes during
the growth of flat fishes, and the still more remarkable phenomena which have been recently
observed in the metamorphoses of the axolotl, and the alpine salamander.